


once, and never again

by Anonymous



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 05:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30000048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: To Lysandre, there's nobody quite like Augustine.
Relationships: Fleur-de-lis | Lysandre/Platane-hakase | Professor Augustine Sycamore
Kudos: 13
Collections: Anonymous





	once, and never again

Should anybody have asked Lysandre his opinion of Augustine, the one word that came to mind was 'confounding'. (He thought himself fortunate that it was highly unlikely anybody would ask that question of him - at least in any way that required anything beyond platitudes.)

There wasn't anybody else like him. That, as much, seemed obvious - and couldn't the same have been said for any person on the planet? And yet, _Augustine_. The fact of their meeting a shining point that linked through to the present day. _Augustine, Augustine, Augustine_. He could still recall the Augustine of his youth, of the first time their eyes had met. He could also have been described as charismatic, but the _something_ that had kept them in each other's orbit felt like something else entirely; something intangible that drew them together. Lysandre had known others to be compelling, but had not so frequently felt so compelled; perhaps his world had shifted only slightly, but in a way that felt irreparable. The fact of _knowing Augustine_ being something that couldn't be undone - not that Lysandre would have wanted to.

Meetings turned easily into partings, however. Lysandre could recall those early nervous feelings - _will we see each other again? Will... I see you again?_ Augustine had smiled and laughed and said _of course_ , so easily, as if unaware of the weight such a statement held in Lysandre's estimation. He'd been true to his word, though; life went on and their respective research drew them down different paths, but there could hardly have been a person in all of Kalos not to know that Augustine could be found at the Sycamore Pokémon Laboratory. (And he was busy, now - they both were - but would happily clear time in his schedule for Lysandre.)

Research was one thing, but ideology was another. For all of the elements that had come together to bring _them_ together, Lysandre felt - inevitably - that that was the one thing capable of tearing them apart. It wasn't that he couldn't understand Augustine's point of view - he could, easily, and that was what was so frustrating. Augustine wouldn't have been _Augustine_ if he wasn't always seeing the good in other people, but there was a limit, Lysandre felt, to how far that logic could be applied. It would be wonderful to see good in others and have that effortlessly rewarded, but the world wasn't like that. It simply wasn't. Augustine would give chance after chance, and Lysandre envied him that. To be so trusting, to be so optimistic. Augustine's smile would be as wide as it was the day they'd first met. Lysandre yearned only for nothing to happen that would change that, and yet--...

The wine would be opened and they'd drink into the night, talking on theoreticals like the philosophers of old. Theory lit the part of Augustine's mind that had led him to research in the first place, and he was more than happy to spend hours on some speculative tussle. _It's all academic, isn't it?_ Picking through topics as if they were fiction. Expression hazy but his words still lucid, indicating towards Lysandre with an almost-empty wine glass as if those words proved everything, QED. Checkmate. The night's winner declared, to be forgotten by the morning. To be played through again on some future date, to try his hand on the risk of a changed outcome.

The one aspect that had changed, and that Augustine seemed reluctant to understand, was that Lysandre's rhetoric had long since tipped beyond the hypothetical. He would present every line of his personal philosophy at Augustine's feet, and watch helplessly as he saw it denied and pushed aside with what seemed like barely a second thought. _But this is just like all the rest, isn't it? Theoreticals, thought experiments, word games. Nothing so audacious as anything that would affect anything beyond this shared conversation._

Team Flare's research progressed. The world was approaching a breaking point, and if it took being forcibly broken before reaching that, then Lysandre was willing to assume responsibility. A responsibility that Augustine wouldn't acknowledge, an outcome he wouldn't want. Team Flare would unleash the power of the Ultimate Weapon, _but not just yet_. (Until then, Lysandre would pour Augustine another glass of wine.)

The Weapon would be fired and the world would be granted to the chosen, a bracket that Augustine had fallen out of through semantics alone. Lysandre would have loved nothing more than to be able to take his hand and pull him into the new world, but time was running out, and some minds couldn't be changed. _Wasn't that the problem with this world to begin with?_ In the years since they'd met, there'd been none like him - and perhaps in the years beyond, there never would be again. And there was beauty, too, in tragedy - kept eternal in memory, a beautiful thought that couldn't be tarnished. Augustine was beyond saving, but Lysandre wouldn't forget him.

To accept the perfect world that Lysandre envisioned, Augustine would have to be persuaded of how hopeless its current state was. They danced around the topic, but Lysandre couldn't find the words to convince him; _perhaps it would take more than words alone_ , he thought. What it would take, however, he couldn't say. He didn't know. Lysandre loved that optimism of him, but would regard it sadly, as if from a distance. He loved the Augustine that had hope for the world, even as his own had diminished practically to nothing. _Don't change, Augustine._

_This world has to change, but you must never._

_Never change._


End file.
